So you had a bad ride. We all know the agony: Was it me. Was it the horse. (It's never the horse...) Why did it not happen today? I had one of those rides the other day. A lesson, too. It was one of the horses I ride regularly, a PRE who, when ridden skillfully, comes quite wonderfully over his back and can passage and piaffe like nobody's business. He's not the most committed to a steady connection to the hand, but when he comes well over his back that too becomes better.
During said lesson, that coming over the back part, the degree of throughness, remained well under what both he and I can accomplish. It wasn't for lack of trying, or lack of good instruction. He came out tense, the wind blowing a million miles an hour, I was a bit off, as the previous day I had had a bad people experience that left a lasting impression for a good 48 hours.
Of course that didn't feel good. I had made progress with this horse (or shall I say with my own abilities on this horse) and wanted to show my trainer how hard I'd worked on that. Fail. I wanted to add to my experience in getting that throughness, feeling the positioning of the inside hind. Fail. Getting a better connection from that inside leg to the outside rein. Fail. If you work with horses, a little unscheduled humbling is part of the deal. Better get used to it. 'Cause that happens without fail every time you think you're pretty hot stuff.
So what is there to do? It's of course a good idea to think a little about what happened, but over-analyzing is not going to help. You can only fix it next time you're on. So I go for a run to get rid of that bad energy. I'll get back on. Focus on a better warm up. Get a little quicker with my aids, a little more determined about my lines. And schedule another lesson. It's not the end of the world. It's one day.
But what when that day happens when you're the teacher? Your student is up on her horse, trying as she might, you're saying all the right things but you can see that despite her proven capability to do it, that day it's not happening. You can see that her position is just a little off, not stable enough for a green but demanding horse. She too had had a rough day, losing a friend to cancer. And both horse and student are getting frustrated.
I told my student to cut herself some slack. This is life, it's big stuff. It's ok, she can do this. She did it yesterday, she'll do it tomorrow. Today, she needs time to process emotions. It's just as important. I get on the horse and ask her to participate. She agrees. Next day, I change it up a bit. We step it up and do lateral work. Both are focused. Feeling like there's progress, that they're doing a good job. And they are. Happiness. Until the next time the stars aren't aligned perfectly.
Such is riding. Such is the sport. Learning to fail is a huge part of success. In anything, and definitely in dressage.
